Abstract
The contents of visual working memory are likely to reflect the influence of both executive control resources and information present in the environment. We investigated whether executive attention is critical in the ability to exclude unwanted stimuli by introducing concurrent potentially distracting irrelevant items to a visual working memory paradigm, and manipulating executive load using simple or more demanding secondary verbal tasks. Across 7 experiments varying in presentation format, timing, stimulus set, and distractor number, we observed clear disruptive effects of executive load and visual distraction, but relatively minimal evidence supporting an interactive relationship between these factors. These findings are in line with recent evidence using delay-based interference, and suggest that different forms of attentional selection operate relatively independently in visual working memory.
Highlights
The contents of visual working memory are likely to reflect the influence of both executive control resources and information present in the environment
The current study focused on how different forms of attentional disruption impact on working memory, and on the nature of the interaction between these factors
A statistically significant interaction was observed between concurrent task and distraction in the proportion correct data, and an effect of distraction was found on backward counting performance, the Bayes Factors supporting each of these outcomes fall into the ‘weak’ or ‘anecdotal’ range (Jarosz & Wiley, 2014)
Summary
The contents of visual working memory are likely to reflect the influence of both executive control resources and information present in the environment. Across 7 experiments varying in presentation format, timing, stimulus set, and distractor number, we observed clear disruptive effects of executive load and visual distraction, but relatively minimal evidence supporting an interactive relationship between these factors These findings are in line with recent evidence using delay-based interference, and suggest that different forms of attentional selection operate relatively independently in visual working memory. In a typical test of selective attention, participants attempt to make judgments to a target stimulus in the ALLEN, BADDELEY, AND HITCH presence of a distractor stimulus that is congruent or incongruent with this target In such circumstances, it is consistently found that incongruent distractors disrupt target judgments to a greater extent when the load on working memory imposed by an irrelevant concurrent task is increased (e.g., Konstantinou et al, 2014). These patterns of findings have been claimed to illustrate the contrasting impacts of perceptual and working memory load on the ability to resist distraction (see Lavie, 2005, 2010, for reviews)
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